Tag: July

I love August, not only because July is usually so depressing, full-on and incredibly erratic in every negative way (and I am a glass-half full gal talking here), but also because it is mine, and baby girl’s birthday month.

I think that all the shit gets out of the way the month before our birthday, so that we can have a super cool time come the 8th month of the year.

But there is soooo much more to love about the last month of Winter, or should I call it Winter/Little Winter, as confirmed in My Climate Guide… we are already getting snippets of Spring as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, and still the warmth continued today, bringing the people out to café in FULL FORCE.

And yes, I have had my fair share of depressing, fairly FULL ON and insane times in July, so I am ALL FOR putting them behind me to part-ay. Baby girl is a chip off the old block, as we were both jumping up and down this morning yelling “yay, birthday month!”

Because today after I got back to my car after our grocery shop, it was toasty and warm from sitting out in the sun for a couple of hours…

and I actually had to open the window.

You know how in Winter, you live for those moments when the car is comfortably warm and yet outside, it is still fresh and chilly? Well today it was 13 degrees, and yet somehow for the last day of July, that translated to a mild, manageable, Wintery and almost-Spring like, heat.

Yep I said it, Spring.

I know you’ll say I’m crazy, we are not even past August yet… but I swear, it is IN THE AIR. Look what I snapped the other day:

Oh man. You know that feeling when you get to the end of something, and you just sigh?

Ahhhh.

Yeah, but mine is a little like ahhh brrrr ahhh.

With everything that has been happening lately, (and by everything, I mean EVERYTHING), I’m just glad I’ve gotten to the end of it all.

The end of Friday. I love Fridays with their beautiful weekend promises, but after keeping with appointments and driving all about the place today, I’m just glad it’s all over.

The end of the week. In fact, it has been exactly one week that I have survived with no ducted heating! Such a 1st world problem I know, and yet as I cast my mind back, I can’t ever think of a time when I didn’t have proper heating to nestle back into… even when we holidayed overseas in July of 1997, it was Summer, so there was absolutely no need for it. I’ve got my eye keenly planted on the day in which the gas heater man will come over and reinstall our new heater (roughly 6 days time) so the countdown is ON. You can be sure I’ll be damn happy and super grateful when that happens.

The end of July. Sure sure, it’s not THE END, yet. But we are days away, and guess what peeps? We have survived 2 months of Winter! I barely consider August a Wintery month. I know it’s still cold, and the mornings are still icy, but I’m adamant a Spring-like change starts to appear around my birthday (of course I would proclaim that) and anyway, I am usually so busy celebrating all kinds of August-fun festivities, I have no time to even feel the cold.

End Friday, End week, End July. I am happy for these closing ceremonies, because where one door closes, another one opens… and today I have 3 exciting doors to peek through…

Today was not as I had to expected it to be – and not in a nice way. It was pretty devastating and heartbreaking to tell you the truth.

I was going to spend the day at home, with baby girl, on this sunny day on the 1st of July, feeling sorry for myself. Disenchanted about life and everything in it, questioning signs, asking for answers, and tearing my hair out in the mess of it all.

I hope you at least have one. Some of you might have many, and that’s rad.

But I’m here to say, you don’t necessarily need, let’s say, 5 of them. It may make life that much more interesting (and frustrating at times), but all you really need is one good one.

I know, because I have one. One good one.

It’s been an interesting day. It’s been an interesting month. I know I’ve said along those lines a lot lately, but it’s true. When I say that something is ‘interesting,’ I usually mean one of two things:

*things have been interesting

*things have been shit.

The latter.

Today, I put baby girl down for a nap, took my cappuccino upstairs, closed the door, and called my sister.

Sitting on the floor of our ‘crap’ room – you know the room where you put all the stuff that you want to keep, but either doesn’t belong anywhere, has no storage room for an spot in the house, or those items that you’ll just deal with eventually? (never) – leaning against a hard wooden tallboy, baby girl’s old dusty walker on one side, a huge wedding print of hubbie and I leaning against the wall staring at me, with a tower of teetering photo albums housing 1000s of photos next to it, sis and I both drank coffee on our respective ends, and purged.

I realised in the fading afternoon light, that despite our stressful circumstances and conversation, that this was good. When you have a sibling, you have someone who is like you. Someone who understands you, gets your life, gets everything around it, and importantly, gets your parents. You can’t really talk to anyone the way you do to your sibling. I have friends who I’m close to… and then there’s my sister. And I realised in that moment, not only am I so grateful to have her, and grateful to have her as my sister (another post), but I’m grateful to have a sibling.

We were housebound. I had no access to my car, which meant that on yet another miserable, grey and windy July day, there was not much to do.

I racked my brain. I pulled out a toy bus with wooden passengers I’d bought for baby girl about a month ago. We played, put blocks on its roof, pushed it around, and made her other toys fall off it when we accidentally pushed it too fast.

Lunch.

Clean up.

Washing.

What to do, what to do…

Aha!

While baby girl was watching some Mister Maker, I got 4 chairs and arranged them in a square. Threw a big blanket over the top that came down to the sides. I grabbed one of her quilted throws and placed that underneath the blanket and between the chairs, on the cold tiled floor. I placed her foam fold-out couch atop, then softened the surrounding chair legs with cushions. And then watched baby girl’s face as she discovered this makeshift house, right in the middle of the kitchen.

She eagerly jumped inside, getting comfortable. I brought in her toy teapot and cup set, her plastic slices of cake, and we got set pretend eating and drinking in the warm surrounds of the fort.

She was thrilled beyond words. As we sat there, silent, squished against each other as is the norm in forts, she whispered “shhh.”

We were taking in the fort more than anything, looking at each other, and smiling. It was beautiful. The close proximity to each other meant we were forced into each other’s space no matter what, but this only meant that we felt the awe, peace and love we were both feeling, two-fold.

Suddenly, the day wasn’t so boring after all. It reminded me of when I used to imagine being a parent, and partaking in silly games like this. Only they aren’t silly. They’re magical. And I’ll be that parent, for as long as I can, who climbs trees and dances along to the daggy actions, who builds forts and races their child in shopping centres, who sings along with them in the car, and who does all the things that makes her children happy, even if it makes her appear, not so grown-up.

So bloody what.

Because her happiness, is my happiness too. The magic of her youth as she experiences the exciting highs and discoveries of a fun, make-believe, happy world, will make me feel like a child again. And that ain’t too bad.

Today is July 25th, which means that we are 6 days away from seeing the arse end of this miserable month.

You can’t blame me for hating on July. I know it’s kind of against the whole point, expressing gratitude in seeing the end of something, but it really has been a whirlwind, and not the positive, holidaying in Europe kind of whirlwind. I mean the kind of whirlwind you get when you step outside into the freezing air and the wind smacks you silly and throws your hair everywhere kind of whirlwind. Throw that scenario into a dryer, and that’s exactly the kind of whirlwind I mean.

It’s not just to do with the cold. Family issues, health issues, work issues, and things being turned upside down and on its head have been taking centre stage this month. Oh, and we’ve all been sick. All of us, a few times already. It sucks.

I am also rapt that with the nearing of the end of this month, it means we are over half-way through Winter! YAY! We do have a bit of an icy cold spell blasting its way through at the moment, but just think… next week, August.